Stephen Curry Channels His Inner Dennis Rodman To Help Warriors’ Bigs With Rebounding

CHESAPEAKE ENERGY ARENA, OKLAHOMA CITY, OK — The Oklahoma City Thunder are known for their size and rebounding, so every Golden State Warriors player has been on notice to crash the boards, even the guards.

Yesterday, point guard Stephen Curry told reports that Warriors assistant coach Ron Adams has asked Curry and fellow #SplashBrothers backcourt mate, Klay Thompson, to tally twelve to fourteen rebounds per game between the two of them.

“If we can do that, we can help our bigs because they have to battle the big guys and keep their position,” said Curry. “If we can get the long rebounds and even get some tip-outs, then we can get into transition a lot faster and gain more possessions and keep them off of second chance points.”

In case you were wondering, Curry and Thompson have 23 rebounds between them for an average of 12.5 per game through the first two games of these 2016 Western Conference Finals, but they only had two each in Game 2 when the Warriors’ bigs stepped up, after combining for a whopping 19 rebounds in the Game 1 loss.

So how does a 6’3”, 185-pound point guard grab rebounds among the land of giants?

Glean tips from one of the greatest rebounders of all-time, Dennis Rodman.

Rodman, who averaged 13.1 rebounds during his Hall Of Fame career, once revealed “tricks of the trade” to Phil Taylor of SportsIllustrated, although Rodman told Taylor they were more like “techniques””:

Rodman is warming to the subject now, never taking his eyes off the screen as he talks. “I know shooters, but that’s not enough,” he says. “You have to watch the flight of the ball. Most guys see the shot go up and they turn and look at the rim, waiting for the ball to come off. I watch the ball in the air and make an adjustment if I need to.”

“I used to watch Dennis Rodman — I’m not, like, a crazy rebounder — but you hear him talking about how he saw the angle of the shot and kinda know where to go, be in the right spots,” said Curry. “He obviously had an extreme motor and length and all that stuff, but for guards, seeing the ball go up, if somebody’s crashing the glass, try to get a body on him. If not, read the angle of the shot, if it’s gonna be short, long, left, right, try to beat whoever it is to the punch.”

According to the article, Rodman even once rebounded for Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen as soon as Rodman was traded to the Chicago Bulls from the San Antonio Spurs, just to get a feel for the angles on their missed shots.

In fact, he even said current Warriors head coach and then-Bulls teammate Steve Kerr “has a high arc on his shots, so I know his rebounds are either going to go straight up or off to the opposite side. Either way, they’re going to be pretty close to the rim”

We’re not sure if Curry has taken his rebounding calculations to the next level by finding trends from player to player, but wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.

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(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via Reuters & AP)